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Saturday

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The Bible in Genesis designates the seventh day of the week, Saturday, as the Sabbath unto the Lord, the day to rest and relax from all the rigors of the work week. God himself is noted to have "rested on the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

However, there are two points in the New Testament that not only point to Sunday as the new day of rest, but a Scripture of Jesus that gives me the right to choose whatever day of the week I want to choose as being my Sabbath, my day of rest.

In the letters of Paul, the apostle noted that the believers of the church should meet at the beginning of the week in order to fellowship, refresh themselves and catch up on the news of the community, as well as take that opportunity to bring the gifts and donations that went to support the church and keep it functioning and thriving. The rationale behind Sunday becoming the early Christian church's day of rest was that Jesus rose on a Sunday after being crucified.

Jesus, when approached by the Pharisees who rebuked him for healing on the Sabbath, noted, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man (made) for the Sabbath." Now if my work week starts on a Monday, and when I worked at Bally as a personal trainer it did, then the seventh day of the week for me would have been a Sunday. However, when I worked at the gas station, my work week started on a Sunday which would have made my Sabbath day a Saturday, like God's. But if you know anything about menial labor jobs, Saturday is a busy day at a gas station, with people traveling and buying, so, yes, as you can probably guess, I was required to work on a Saturday at the gas station and choose a day within the week to be my day of rest, my Sabbath.

That fact is when I began to adopt Thursday as my day of rest. Thursday, you say with incredulity? How can you justify Thursday as a day of rest when the Bible, which you claim to follow, says the day of rest is the seventh day of the week? My response to that is two fold:

1. I had to do what was best for me. Remember the Sabbath is a day of rest. If Thursday was the only day I could rest then Thursday became my Sabbath day.

2. Thursday was a day that I could take for doctor's appointments or other appointments in which workers worked because they weren't operational on Saturdays and Sundays because those days were their sabbath days of rest.

Long story short, the Sabbath is a day of rest, more or less, and can be observed on any day of the week. The key to remember is just to rest that day and especially commune with the Lord of our souls. One thing I don't like is restaurants that insist you work on a Sunday, which for me is a family day, but that's a debate and a whole other kettle of fish that I choose to allow someone else on this post to undertake. Shalom!

Learn more about this author, Aerynne Aiudi.
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